Long post - sorry.
11 week old in hospital for 2 weeks receiving IV antibiotics. My ex isn’t on the scene so I’m here alone.
One of the antibiotics he’s on (gentamicin) involves a once daily 40ish minute drip through his cannula along with daily, painful heel-prick-and-squeeze-out-the-droplets-for-10-mins painful blood tests.
Last night the cannula he’d had for a few days failed (as they do) so we awaited the doctor to come and do another. For the record, although I hate to see him go through all of these procedures I’m very good at keeping calm and upbeat while they are going on, as sometimes it rubs off on the baby and he doesn’t cry. I think it makes it easier for him at any rate.
When she arrived the room was calm, and dark and quiet. I’ve managed to keep the baby asleep for some of the more invasive procedures before including a cannula insertion, and I was kind of hoping for the same (it was also circa 1am).
Doctor arrived, marching in, flinging door open, talking loudly to assistant, slammed on the light (this part is fair enough she has to see what she’d doing).
I asked her to keep her voice down, but she said loudly in a bullish manner that he was getting a cannula in and was going to wake up anyway. At this point he woke and I couldn’t keep him very calm for the procedure but it was over in a few mins. Dr asked her assistant ‘do you think that’s in properly’? Assistant confirmed yes, and off they went. Nurse made a passing comment to me about the doctor being the ‘head doctor’ (I think when she’d expected someone further down the hierarchy to come and do a procedure like this).
Nurse started the drip, I questioned why a different machine to usual was being used. I think she said something along the lines of the usual machine being ‘too sensitive’ but I may be remembering that bit wrong.
Immediately baby was unhappy. And very quickly became really unhappy. Angry, angry painful screaming. I picked him up, put him down. Tried to feed. Went out to nurses station. Tried to calm again. Alarm went off (this happened a few times and every time I had to put the baby down and get up push the call button myself to get the nurse to come). He grew more and more and more distraught. Nurse came in a few times, and I went out once. Machine alarm went off twice for ‘occlusion’.
By this time (about 20 mins into the procedure) the baby was fully distraught. I’d never seen him like that before. Alarm went off again. Again pushed the call. Nurse came in and I asked if she was sure something wasn’t wrong. That he was definitely in pain. She checked his cannula. His vein had blown and the antibiotic had been going into his tissue (we were on to the flush by this point so a fair bit had gone in the wrong way). His wee arm was bright red and ballooned up to his elbow. At this point she stopped the treatment and I picked up baby to comfort, he kind of ‘passed out’ immediately on me through trauma. I do this - if I’ve been very very upset I often immediately fall into a very deep sleep so I wasn't alarmed, but could see how much he'd been through.
By this point I was visibly upset (for the first time since we have been in hospital). The baby began to calm. A different doctor came in and said they were going to need to reinsert another cannula. By this point I felt like running out of the hospital with my baby, but desperately tried to get a grip. I requested (insisted) that there was calm and quiet in the room this time. Different doctor managed to get cannula in with me holding the baby and him not waking, which what what I'd been hoping for the first time but anyway…
His wee hand was still ballooned. I asked about it, and they said to ‘keep it elevated and keep an eye on it’. I asked what that meant (given that I am not medical and it was now 2am). Was told the nurse would come in to check.
At this point they left me, crying in a chair, in the dark, clutching my baby in the middle of the night.
After a while on my own I put him back in his cot (he was still in a really deep sleep) and made a little device to keep his arm elevated with a towel and some hair bobbles. I then had a meltdown on my own.
The nurse eventually came back and checked his hand at 0430 (I know she didn't come before this as I was still awake and watching him).
On top of all of that, googling on my own in the dark (never a good idea but by now I’ve lost all faith in the system) I’ve discovered that gentamicin has a pretty high incidence of a side effect of irreparable inner ear damage, hearing loss, and damage to the vestibular (balance) system. This has never been discussed with me. There is also anecdotes of people relating it to autism. Am trying not to listen to those.
No observations were done after the event (not sure if this would be standard but he had obviously been through a lot) nor have been done yet actually even though they are meant to be twice daily at 8am and 8pm.
So
AIBU to feel completely traumatised, weepy and shaky? I can’t actually look at the baby (guilt) and am completely unsure of what to do next.
I feel I wasn’t listened to the Dr in the first place when I asked for quiet and calm. I feel both myself and the baby weren’t listened to by the nurse when I questioned the different (less sensitive) machine being used and then again when we were both trying in our different ways to tell her something was very wrong, I feel we were deserted by all of them in the middle of the night after a really horrible experience and I feel like the fairly high incidence of damaging side effects very not discussed with me.
And I don’t know what to do now. I have no medical knowledge. Do I ask for a new antibiotic? He's got a bad infection and it needs to be treated.
I feel completely weak, undermined and powerless and can't even imagine talking to the doctor this morning, never mind being managing to be assertive.
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AIBU?
AIBU to feel totally traumatised by what happened in hospital last night
95 replies
BrightonExGoth · 20/12/2016 10:19
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